Peters, Holmberg, Moore – a personal configuration
En 2007, Distances et savoirs a publié un entretien avec Børje Holmberg, Michael G. Moore et Otto Peters1 à la suite d’une conférence donnée par ces trois personnalités internationales du monde de l’enseignement à distance, dans le cadre des ateliers de recherche du réseau européen EDEN2.
Thomas Hülsmann, responsable du « Master of distance education » (MDE), projet commun de l’Université d’Oldenburg Carl von Ossitzky en Allemagne et de l’University of Maryland University College aux Etats-Unis, participait à cette conférence. Il exprime ici ses propres réflexions sur le regard rétrospectif que chacun de ces trois « pionniers » de la formation à distance a porté ce jour-là sur ses propres théories et leurs devenirs.
In 2007, Distances et savoirs edited the core comments of a conference given by three prominent personalities in the world of distance education, Børje Holmberg, Michael G. Moore et Otto Peters at one of the Research Workshops of the European network EDEN3 .
Thomas Hülsmann, who took part in the conference, comments here the views expressed at the time by each of the three “pioneers” on his own theory and what uses it has been put to.
This short paper comments on Bernath & Vidal (2007) and picks up a comment, which I made on my personal reading of the three great theorists when the panel debate at the fourth EDEN Research Workshop in Barcelona was opened to the audience. Such personal readings are not always welcome as the following remark by Peters during the conference shows. He expressed his “disappointment and sadness” about being misunderstood, e.g. by Garrison, who “characterizes 'Peters industrial model' as an organizational model, saying that it is about organizing the educational process to realize economies of scale”. He continues: “After 50 years of discussion I am still misunderstood in such a massive way.” (cf. Bernath &Vidal, 2007, p. 433) Hence risking a personal reading may need a word of justification.
1. Bernath & Vidal, “The theories and the theorists : why theory is important for research”, Distances et savoirs, Paris, Hermès-Lavoisier-Cned, vol. 5, n° 3/2007, p. 427-458.
2. More specifically: The 4th Eden Research Workshop on “Competence development in online distance education and e-learning” was held in Castelldelfels close to Barcelona between October, 25th -28th, 2006.
3. EDEN, www.eden-online.org
Peters’ sadness recalls the old platonic criticism of writing:
Look Phaidros, the annoying thing about writing is something it has in common with painting. A good portrait presents a person as if alive. So does a written text. You could think it speaks to you with some reason. However, if you ask something, because you want to understand, the text repeats itself, always saying the same thing. Once written, the text roves around with anybody and cannot distinguish those to whom it should speak and to whom not. And if mistreated and unreasonably criticized, it always would need the help of its father (author). Without him it is defenseless. (Schöttker, D. (Ed.).
(1999). p. 35, translation to English and added emphasis TH).
The central message here is that the text gains an independence from its author
‘and roves around with anybody’ including the less worthy. Authors are the creators of the texts but, like it or not, not their owners; while they can come to their defense they have no prerogative in interpreting them; they can clarify how their texts (or theories) were intended but in the final analysis they must accept that their words (and theories) have a life of their own.
Hence my personal reading of the three theorists may produce possible disappointment not only on Peters’ but also on Holmberg’s and Moore’s sides.
However, the intention here is not to provide an adequate and authentic interpretation of the three theorists but is about my personal readings of them influenced by my special context of reception.
Holmberg
Holmberg is associated with three theoretical stances: the empathy approach, guided didactic conversation, and distance education as facilitating a one-to-one relationship between tutor and learner. While in the Barcelona debate he presented the empathy approach as his main achievement, in my personal configuration the slightly boring sounding ‘guided didactic conversation’ refers to his real coup. That he himself would see this differently can be inferred from our discussion of the last point, i.e. distance education as facilitating a one-to-one relationship between tutor and learner.
Empathy approach
In the Barcelona conference Holmberg presented the ‘empathy approach’ as his main achievement. He argued that this qualifies as a theory according to Popperian critical rationalism, i.e. a theory which can be and has been empirically tested. He himself labeled his theory as ‘modest’ in the sense that its central hypothesis is not surprising: indeed, that being addressed in a friendly personal style helps motivation and learning seems an educationally sound assumption.
While I have not looked into the attempts to falsify4 the ‘empathy hypothesis’ in detail I am not astonished that they failed. However, I wonder if the tests separated the instructional design apects (cf. ‘tutorial in print’ including: advance organizers, objectives, in-text questions, in-text activities, summaries, model solutions etc.) on the one hand, and the personal and conversational tone of addressing students on the other. My personal assumption would be that it is more the instructional design, which contributes to better learning, rather than the personal empathetic style.
(However, the opposite position has also been defended: Diane Conrad in Distance Education (2002), or Martha Cleveland-Innes & Randy Garrison in Bernath &
Sangrà (2007) (to take but two examples) seem to suggest that eventually the personal engagement of the tutor is what marks the difference.)
Guided didactic conversation
In my personal configuration Holmberg has a role he may not like: His theory of
‘guided didactic conversation’ gave some educational legitimacy to Peters’ theory of distance education as ‘most industrialized form of teaching and learning’ (in Garrison’s interpretation which I share) by allowing to shift the main burden of teaching to course design. Let me explain: Geographical distance enforced a reorganization of the teaching and learning process. It could not mimic the seamless moves from content presentation and teacher-student interaction so characteristic of classroom teaching,. Hence reorganization had to include two things: (i) interaction and content presentation had to be disentangled and separated, and (ii) especially due to the lack of technologies to sustain ‘responsive interaction at a distance’ at the time, the main burden of teaching had to be shifted from interaction to content presentation. Such a reorganization would allow to capture economies of scale but it risked also provoking the scorn of a profession for which Socratic dialogue officially epitomizes the very idea of good teaching. While it was not Holmberg who first developed the instructional design typical of the tutorial in print, his emphasis that you can design the dialogue into the content5 added the needed legitimacy to the
“objectifying” shift of the locus of teaching to course development upon which economies of scale is predicated. It is this bold coup of hijacking the notion of Socratic dialogue for distance education which, in my personal configuration, is Boerje Holmberg’s main gift to distance education6.
4. “to falsify” here understood as “to prove wrong”, and not to forge or fake (for French readers enlightenment).
5. Recalling again the previously Phaidros citation that “A good portrait presents a person as if living. So does a written text. You could think it speaks to you with some reason.”
6. Others were less convinced “The argument that it (traditional distance education, T.H.) provides opportunities for ‘guided didactic conversation’ is clearly unconvincing.” (Rumble 2001, p. 3).
One-to-one relationship between tutor and student
How far I read Holmberg against the grain of his intentions and how little he may like this ascribed role of a facilitator of efficiency and scale economies becomes evident when discussing his third theoretical stance: that distance education provides the unique opportunity of a ‘one-to-one relationship between tutor and student’:
“What is remarkable is that distance education can bring about a one-to-one relation, each students personally interacting with his/her tutor. This one-to- one relation between learner and tutor is exceptional in education, probably elsewhere known mainly in traditional Oxford and Cambridge tutorials.”
(Holmberg, 2005, p. 10).
The label one-to-one relation is, however, a misnomer: Mathematically speaking a 1-1 relationship is a bijection which would assume that not only each learner has one and only one tutor but also that each teacher has one and only one learner.
What Holmberg means is that in traditional (group free) distance education each student had a sort of a separate ‘noise free channel’ to contact the teacher. This is indeed true and still applies to some extent to online conferencing. However, the extent to which this option is realised might compromise economies of scale7. Holmberg, with his background of Hermonds, a large scale and highly popular distance teaching institution in Sweden, shared the aim of widening access to education, a mission predicated on scalability. Scalability is assured by redefining ‘working practices’ (cf.
Rumble 2004) and what is reflected in the subtle change in terminology from teachers to tutors. The shift in labels signals a deeper role change and unbundling the teaching functions. The prestige of academic teaching is mainly located in course development8. The tutor on the other hand is an assistant to the learner, helping him to understand the material; but not an ‘authorized source of content presentation’ on his/her own right anymore. This is why this division of labor, characteristic of distance education, comprises an element of deskilling9. The relative devaluation of the role of the teacher to that of a tutor (epitomized in lower salaries and more vulnerable employment status) provides to a large extent the base of the scalability of distance education.
7. It is not without irony that distance education, the most industrialized form of teaching and learning, has been likened to ‘princely education’: “I like your idea of personalized education.
It is probably most personal in a one-to-one relationship. Princes were - and presumably still are - educated in this way” (Peters in Bernath & Rubin (Ed.), 1999, p. 158).
8. And that indeed the locus was shifted from direct student teacher interaction to course development was clearly expressed by Mills: “To be absolutely clear, where learning materials are produced for numbers of student..., this is regarded as the academic teaching and is considered to be outside the framework of learner support.” (Mills, 2003, p. 104).
9. Rumble, 2004.
Peters
For me Peters’ formula of distance education as most industrialized form of education made the pieces of the distance education jigsaw puzzle fall into place:
how it worked as a system, how the teaching and learning processes had to be reorganized, the division of labor, the role of technologies, its cost-structure, etc. In spite of reservations close to home (i.e. among German educators) the theory found wide acceptance and even, at least temporarily, made a career to the status of a defining element of distance education. A specially ‘clever’ move on Peters’ side was treating the meaning of industrialization as variable and open to re-specification.
Distance education as most industrialized form of education
Peters’ theory provided me the linchpin to understanding distance education. I read it, however, in quite a similar way as Garrison did. According to my reading Peters surveyed a large number of distance education institutions (probably operating with the usual minimalist definition of distance education as ‘education at a distance’, i.e. where teacher and students are geographically separated for most of the time, and found that while contexts were different, they all had to resort to similar approaches to overcome the problem posed by the separation of teacher and learner. Peters discovered that they adopted approaches similar to industrial production: division of labor, planning, use of technologies, and mass production (to name but a few). Peters drew two conclusions: (i) distance education is the most industrialized form of education (industrialization formula); (ii) distance education is, in terms of methods and approaches as well as organizational requirements, very different from traditional education (sui generis clause).
Peters’ approach made the pieces of the distance education jigsaw puzzle fall nicely in place especially with respect to organizational and economic issues. In terms of organization Peters’ theory emphasizes division of labor and therefore nicely tallies with systems approaches as analyzed by Rumble (1979) or Moore &
Kearsley (1995, 2005). The separation of course development and student support as two system components is characteristic for distance institutions in otherwise diverse contexts, and appears to be an efficient and effective response to the imperatives of restructuring teaching and learning under the conditions of geographical distance.
Moreover, the two subsystems relate also to the main economic cost drivers and hence to the cost-structure of traditional distance education10. Course development is mainly associated with upfront fixed costs, and variable costs mainly relate to student support. The potential to capture economies of scale is based on this cost-structure, i.e.
10. The term ‘traditional distance education’ here means distance education before the onset of the ICT revolution, which provides a major rupture in the history of distance education.
the relative composition of fixed and variable costs11. Note that the prestige of academic teaching is vested here in course development while student support may be outsourced to adjuncts and less costly personnel in more precarious working conditions12.
Dissident or mainstream?
Peters complains that, at the time, his theory was ignored by mainstream educators or even rejected:
“At that time you had to be bold, if not to say dare-devil to offer such a comparison between a process belonging to the lofty sphere of ideas and a process belonging to the ugly world of soot-blacked factories with smoking chimneys.” (Peters in Bernath & Rubin, 1999, S. 143)
However, it must be said that while he was contre courant with respect to his educational colleagues (and the 1968 student movement) he was, possibly naively, riding a much broader current (at least partially) triggered by the Sputnik Shock which led to the West readjusting its educational policies on a broad scale. The discipline of the economics of education emerged and various versions of the human capital theory influenced the policies of big players such as the OECD and the World Bank. In the words of a leading OECD administrator ‘Education is too important to leave it to the educators’. (Papadopoulos, 1994). In this vein the theory, at least in the Garrison reading as an organizational theory aiming at capturing economies of scale, responded nicely to what educational analysts identified as the world crisis in education (Coombs, 1985):
“Education is highly labor-intensive and has not substantially altered its technologies for many generations, which has inhibited teacher productivity...” (Coombs 1985: 146)
“Most other professions (for example medicine, law, engineering) are organized on the basis of a division of hierarchy of functions, with corresponding financial rewards based on each individual’s demonstrated level of professional competence and designated functional responsibilities.
The teaching profession by contrast has no hierarchy of functions and responsibilities.” (Coombs 1985: 147)
Obviously these criticisms resonate well with Peters criticism of traditional teaching as artisan approach which he saw rife to be substituted by the industrial approach
11. The potential for economies of scale is usually measured by the quotient of average cost per student (AC) to variable cost per student (V), i.e. AC/V.
12. cf. footnote 6
characterized by division of labor or, in Coombs words, a ‘hierarchy of functional responsibilities’.
Career of a theory
As the previous section suggests the theory resonated with the broader currents of the time and, in spite of the missing of immediate acclamation at home, became a reference point for many distance educators not least due to Desmond Keegan’s work to make it known in the Anglophone world. In fact, it is interesting to see with hindsight how Peters, who had started with the minimalist definition of distance education and moved to an empirically grounded characterization and explanation of organizational arrangements and teaching approaches in most distance teaching institutions world wide, found his conceptualization of distance education being promoted to a definitional status13. The resulting boosted self confidence can be seen when Peters, with the air of a ‘Dean of the Distance Education cathedral’, ostracized videoconferencing as not belonging to distance education since it does not satisfy the criteria comprised in the industrialization formula:
“Let us try to analyze the video-network teaching you have described:
Is it carefully planned and carefully developed with the support of considerable financial means - which are used for instructional purposes - not for technical media? No.
Are the best scholars in the given discipline engaged in order to produce a really authentic teaching? No.
Has there been a cooperation of educational and subject matter specialists?
No.
Has the product - the teaching- been ‘objectified’? No.
Has the product been mass-produced? No.
Do the institutions use these networks in order to target the greatest possible number of students? No.
Do these models try to achieve what Henry Ford had in mind when he produced high quality products at low prices for everybody? No
Is this instruction developed in order to reach and help students who were born into socially disadvantaged families and neighborhoods and also to those who can never attend classes on campus for other reasons? May be.”
(Peters, in Bernath & Rubin (1999) eds., p. 162)
Laager mentality: ‘sui generis’
There are reasons for the increasing influence of Peters’ theory among distance educators. It supported the constitution of distance education as a proper subsystem
13. This status was lost in the later editions of Keegan (cf. Rumble, 1989: Table 1)
of education. In the words of Luhmann: “In historical transformation processes towards functional differentiation new claims for autonomy on sub-system basis will be generated.” (Luhmann & Schoor, 1988, S. 46) And: “Generally, such claims for autonomy are first rudimentary form of reflection of the system.” (Luhmann &
Schoor, 1988, S. 47) Peters’ theory can be read as such a “system reflection” leading to a claim for autonomy as epitomized in the sui generis clause. Rumble adds to that:
“The growth in confidence among distance educators, and the search for a theory that would set distance education apart from traditional education, ultimately reinforced the tendency to separatism. Several reasons may be adduced for this:
for example that distance educators continue to occupy a ‘laager’ position, in which they feel themselves to be isolated from other disciplines and subject areas, including mainstream educational thinking. The creation of a separate disciplinary position would act as an antidote to such isolationism, providing distance educators a status they otherwise lack. Alternatively, distance educators might perceive themselves as a highly organized group of ‘revolutionaries’ with their own journals, associations and theoretical structures, who are engaged ‘in the process of formulating radical conceptual reorganization within the field [of education]’ (Griffith and Mullins [1972], cited in Becher [1989]). Or, as another alternative, distance education might perceive separatism as a means to power - to the creation of chairs in distance education and departments of distance education.” (Rumble, 2004, p. 113)
Whatever the reason for ‘separatism’ it is clear that Peters’ industrialization formula can be seen as an integrating conceptualization of distance education, while the sui generis clause drew the lines of distinction.
Responsive interaction at a distance
In these arrangements structured by the imperatives of geographical distance, the information and communication technologies (ICT) exploded like a bomb shell.
Especially the new capabilities for ‘responsive interaction at a distance’ de facto question the rationale for some central system features as well as didactic approaches of distance education: Why do we have to design (simulated) dialogue into a course if we can have real (albeit mediated) dialogue at a distance? Why incurring the high fixed costs of development if we can use off-the-shelf material and wrap dialogue around it? Responsive interaction at a distance, which was hailed as addressing the only remaining deficiency of poor student-teacher interaction, did in fact “drive horses” through the whole institutional settings and educational approaches. Especially, it changes the very cost-structure of distance education on which its cost-efficiency and claims for scale economies were based. Fixed costs of development dropped and variable costs per student, driven by the quest for more student-teacher interaction as a sign of quality, soared, thus reintroducing the old
lock-step linkage between costs and volume (i.e. number of students) which traditional distance education has, while not broken, at least loosened considerably.
The impact of all this can be gauged by the emerging discussion on convergence of distance education and conventional teaching, with obvious consequences for the sui generis claim. Interestingly, Peters seems quite unperturbed by these developments. Possibly because he never intended his theory to be read in the way Garrison has proposed and has long since de-linked his concept of industrialization from the traditional Fordist interpretation.
Peters’ theory as contingency formula
For me - and the reasons are evident from the previous paragraphs - Peters’ later modifications of his theory were not altogether convincing. Moreover, I learned my scientific method at the London School of Economics (LSE) under Popper’s successor, the Hungarian mathematician and philosopher Imre Lakatos; in fact, Peters’ modifications pretty much looked like what Lakatos would refer to as a ‘defensive belt’ of ad hoc adjustments introduced to protect a theory from falsification14. Peters, not subscribing himself to critical rationalism, would most likely not be worried by such labels clinging to the view that his theory has captured the essence of distance education.
I have already mentioned Luhmann in the above section. Following Luhmann one could read Peters’ theory as contingency formula. Luhman characterizes a contingency formula as comprising in a nutshell guidelines for dealing with contingencies15. Peters’ formula, that distance education is the most industrialized form of education, can be read as such a rule: ‘in doubt, look for help to what happens in the industrial sector’; or, more provocatively: ‘distance educators mimic industrial procedures!’. But industrial procedures are subject to change. By linking distance education, not statically to a specific interpretation of industrialization (such
14. Peters’ ostracism (cited above) can be nicely interpreted in Lakatos’ terminology of
‘monster barring’: when critics come up with counter examples of a theory its hard core defenders try to declare the counter examples as ‘monsters’ for the simple reason that they deviate from core beliefs. While Popper castigates such procedures Lakatos, more realistically, acknowledges that scientists do that, still admitting that such maneuvers reduce the empirical content of a theory.
15. He writes: “Contingency formulae are not chosen arbitrarily. The conditions for successful formulations relate to their function. They have to reduce complexity (i.e. the indeterminateness of other possibilities).” (Luhmann & Schoor, 1988, S. 59; translation to English TH) “Contingency formulae [of a system T.H.] are reflective achievements pertaining to the function of the system.” (Luhmann & Schoor, 1988, S. 60; translation to English TH) In our economist interpretation of Peters’ theory as an organizational model for the educational process to realize efficiencies (hence following Garrison) the formula says: ‘learn from industry’. Contingencies are dealt with by looking how the industrial sector would approach the issue.
as Fordism), but dynamically with ‘what happens in industry’ Peters built in a certain plasticity/elasticity in his theory which made it adaptable to new situations16.
Contingency formulae, according to Luhman can, and are expected to be re-specified for changing contexts. The possibly most recent proposition for the re-specification of Peters’ industrialization formula is due to Moore and is presented below.
Media theory
While Peters would shrug off the argument that responsive interaction at a distance did “drive horses” through traditional distance education, he nevertheless senses tectonic tensions producing cracks in the edifice of distance education. The tensions are related to the historical transition from the age of industrialization to the information age. The former can be seen as being enmeshed with the typographeum, as Giesecke (e.g. 2007) refers to the era of print media. Distance education as we knew it until the nineties, was deeply entrapped in the typographeum. The typographeum is a chiffre or codeword for the co-evolution of standardized printed matter (such as books or newsprints), new distribution channels (including the market) and new cognitive formats on the side of the subject (including written language, new text forms (such as context free descriptions) or new formats of perception. Printing allows the replication of identical documents such that massive parallel processing is the basis of societal communication. Following Giesecke, Fordist distance education can be read as form of ‘interaction-scarce’ parallel processing of standardized texts.
Framing the transition processes in such a manner explains why Peters does not want to be seen as a theorist who simply suggests a template for capturing economies of scale. He explores the transition processes, which have deep and lasting implications on the side of social organization as well as individual cognitive formats and identity formation. Media are not simply means to raise social productivity and contribute to individual comfort. Society and the self co-evolve with the media (technologies) they use.
Moore
This section shortly summarizes my reading of the theory of transactional distance, comments especially on the concept of autonomy, and presents what I interpret as Moore’s re-specification of Peters’ industrialization formula.
16. This is why Hülsmann (2006) refers to the ‘distance education chameleon’.
Theory of transactional distance
Like Peters’ theory, Moore’s is grounded in large empirical surveys and this may be the reason why he insists that his theory is descriptive rather than prescriptive. In my reading of his theory its practical value is to bring into focus the three main parameters (structure, dialogue, and learner autonomy) impinging on successful teaching and learning17.
The interplay is, in a nutshell, that you should find a compromise between dialogue and structure that fits the profile of the learner (his/her capability for autonomous learning). Where this optimization succeeds transactional distance has been minimized. “Transactional distance is the gap of understanding and communication between the teachers and learners caused by geographical distance.”
(Moore & Kearsly, 2005, p. 223)18
It is telling that Fichten & Bernath write: “In order to identify the three determinants (i.e. structure, dialogue and autonomy; TH) a large number of program descriptions have been analyzed” (Fichten & Bernath, 2007, p. 353; translation TH). I can see that such an analysis can identify the relative weights of structure and dialogue; I can also see that you can infer the scope of choices allowed for the learner, i.e. the ‘autonomy’, both offered and imposed, but I would argue that without knowing the ‘empirical learner’ such analysis does not allow to conclude anything about the level of transactional distance experienced by the learner. Program descriptions as such do not provide a sufficient basis for assessing their transactional distance. You can identify the specific compromise between dialogue and structure but without knowing the (empirical) learner you cannot infer anything about transactional distance. There may be situations (such as vendor training by CBTs) for which you may analyze the level of dialogue and structure and where the learner (the employee) is expected ‘to dance to the tune’. In this case we would not speak of transactional distance since the ‘whims of the learners’ are taken as irrelevant. Strictly speaking in such a situation the concept of transactional distance simply does not apply since transactional distance is finding the optimal compromise between dialogue and structure for the learner.
Alternatively you could stipulate your envisaged learners and analyze the appropriateness of the material in terms of balance between dialogue and structure expecting the assumptions made about the learner will apply. In such a case it could be concluded that transactional distance is expected to be minimal if the learner turns out to comply with the envisaged characteristics. However, this way one has, de
17. A succinct account of Moore’s theory is Fichten & Bernath (2007).
18. This seems to suggest that the theory is restricted to distance education. However, finding the proper configuration between structure, dialogue and the learner’s capability for autonomy is a general problem though certainly exacerbated by geographical distance. The citation, however, suggests that Peters’ interpretation that the theory does not aim at reducing transactional distance is wrong: “According to Moore, a reduction of the transactional distance is most certainly not an objective in all cases.” (Peters 1995, p. 26)
facto, reduced an ‘equation with three unknowns’ (i.e. structure, dialogue and autonomy) to an ‘equation with two unknowns’ only (i.e. structure and dialogue) which obviously simplifies the problem to the extent that then programs and curricula could be assessed in terms of transactional distance. The price, however, may be that the learner does not fit his profile19.
While the theory is empirically grounded it seems at the same time to be circular and underdetermined. Assuming that you want to use the theory to evaluate transactional distance in a given situation you may find yourself trapped in a certain circularity: if the configuration of dialogue and structure with the needs of the learner (his/her capability for autonomy) is optimal, then transactional distance is minimal and vice versa. But the concepts remain ‘underdetermined’ without having identified the relevant indicators for a specific situation. In this sense the theory alerts the educator to the central dimensions of teaching and learning but, beyond that, remains unspecific20.
Even though it was grounded in an empirical analysis of teaching/learning scenarios in distance education it seems to apply generally for all teaching learning transactions. For the distance educator the ‘wakening call’ is: forget about geographical distance, its all about transactional distance.
Autonomy
In their reading of Moore, Fichten & Bernath (2007) see Moore as having been inspired by humanist psychology and the Dewey/Rogers/Knowles tradition21 to the extent that his theory of transactional distance is designed to foster and extend learner autonomy. And there is reason that this, indeed, was the case. However, during the conference Moore is on record as saying that “Autonomy is a very good thing for some people and some subjects under some conditions, and a very bad thing for other people.” (Moore in Bernath & Vidal, 2007). If the Fichten & Bernath interpretation is true why then at the conference he so remarkably retracts from the normative aspects and the alledged aims of his theory by insisting that his theory is
19. Hegel once quipped at the criticism that his theory would not correspond to reality ‘the worse for reality’; the danger is that, once we have produced programs where structure and dialogue is nicely balanced for the imagined learner, and the real learner turns out to misfit the expectations, we would just say the same: ‘the worse for the learner’. There is a danger that a transactional distance analysis which reduces the problem of transactional distance from a three parameters to a two parameter problem by keeping the learner constant (by design; or introducing the learner as a normative construct) fires back when the real learners march in.
20. This was also observed by others (cf. Jézégou, 2007, p. 342). – Note that Moore (Moore/Kearsley 2005), as compared to Holmberg for example, has introduced peer interaction (as an additional element to student tutor and student content interaction).
21. John Dewey (1859-1952) American philosopher and innovative educator; Carl Rogers (1902-1987) human Psychologist; Malcolm Knowles (1913-1997) adult educator.
not prescriptive (normative) but descriptive? Does this signal that autonomy is little more than a label for the variable of learner profile?
Speculating about the reasons for such a less enthusiastic attitude for autonomy one can hardly fail noticing the changing context of discourse. While the protest in the seventies was about freeing the individuals from the shackles of tradition and authority emerging from social structure and stratification more recent sociology and pedagogy impute the individual with a level of ‘autonomy’ beyond to what many would be able to cope with. The new discourse devolves to the learner the responsibility to keep his/her employability ensured and, in a life long learning cycle, to remain permanently responsive to the requirements of the labor market. Where once autonomy aimed at strengthening the individual it now aims at subsuming it to the exigencies of the market. A notion of autonomy hijacked by neoliberal agenda and respecified as ‘customer choice’ may indeed fail sustaining the enthusiasm of a theorist in the tradition of Dewey/Rogers/Knowles.
Another, more philosophically motivated challenge to the notion of autonomy derives from Levinas’ philosophy. Autonomy here is seen as “the feat of remaining the same despite the unknown lands into which thought seems to lead” and engaged in “reducing to the Same all that is opposed to it as other.” (Levinas, as cited in Loewenthal & Snell, 1998, p. 330). The quest for autonomy is seen as the “Western project” which is “one day we know it all … and the face of the other is not there to stop me” (Loewenthal & Snell, 1998, p. 328).
Both speculations may not hit the nail when it comes to explaining why Moore so markedly retreated from autonomy as a goal of his theory of transactional distance but they may nevertheless suggest that the notion of autonomy merits further, and possibly less adulatory, attention than it has received so far.
Moore’s re-specification of the contingency formula
As mentioned above contingency formulae can be re-specified and this applies also to Peters industrialization formula. Possibly the most recent such re-specification is due to Moore’s conceptualization of distance education as network systems. Central to the network paradigm are strategic alliances and vertical disaggregation:
“In the strategic alliance, participants in a network contribute technological and managerial expertise and capital and share the costs of developing new technologies, spreading the financial risks of entering new markets. Although quite common in the manufacturing industry, in distance education so far, strategic alliances have not made much headway in collaborative design and delivery of the products, that is, courses and programs. Rather, they have been directed towards cooperative marketing of their existing courses.
However, in the distance education field, it is not only the strategic alliance but also the vertical disaggregation form of network that is likely to be of
greater interest in the future. Vertical disaggregation is the process developed in the manufacturing industry to deal with shortening product life cycles, by which large firms outsource the production of various components of the product to smaller suppliers. As in manufacturing, in the knowledge industries too it looks as if vertical disaggregation will become the means of reducing product life cycles and improving efficiency and quality. What that means in distance education is outsourcing some of design and a lot of the product development of course materials. It means devolving learner support services to local points of contact and specialized services. It means drawing in instructor resources from wherever they may be located rather than solely on the faculty on campus.” (Moore, 2003, p. 4)
As an illustration for such a network system Moore refers to a major project of teacher education in Brazil, Proformacao, in which he was personally involved.
Again distance education is described as a complex system. However, not all of the systems components have to be ‘hosted’ at the same institution.
Conclusion: heritage or legacy
For me the critical appropriation of the theoretical contributions of Holmberg, Peters, and Moore have profoundly shaped my conceptualization of distance education. Holmberg’s argument that dialogue can be embedded in the course material may even gain in importance given the new technical possibilities of designing interaction into digital course material. While at the time instructional designers were limited to in-text questions, in-text activity and clearly laid-out structures of teaching objectives and content, the digital environment adds a range of new possibilities including interactive spreadsheets, simulations, computer marked assessments to name but a few. That an empathetic personal style is helpful seems so obvious but is still far from being consistently implemented.
Peters’ theory of industrialization (i) still provides the backdrop for a thorough understanding of organizational and economic issues of traditional distance education; (ii) which better than any other approach allows to map the shifts and changes, especially those arising from ICT and the new capabilities of ‘responsive interaction at a distance’; but (iii) at a more profound level, Peters writing allows to perceive the co-evolution of media/technologies, society and the self. - Moore maps the key dimension of teaching and learning interaction alerting course designers and teachers that the balance between dialogue and structure needs to be adjusted to the capability of the individual learner for autonomous learning.
There is however the argument that for new entrants in the field of distance education all this is pre-web theory and as such is less a heritage than a legacy that burdens our theorizing on distance education with obsolete concepts. This papers argues that, on the contrary, there are reasons for the novice to take into account this major corpus of distance
education theories for at least two reasons: First, it is rich with stimulating ideas of continued relevance; second, all theorizing is based on distinctions which underpin the role of historical knowledge because what is new is more clearly visible on the backdrop of the old22.
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